


But Fire is How We Fight

by sinestrated



Series: Unfettered [2]
Category: Leverage
Genre: A dog dies, Developing Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:53:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21949129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinestrated/pseuds/sinestrated
Summary: Eliot gets ambushed and captured while on a job. Quinn rescues him, but at great cost.
Relationships: Mr. Quinn/Eliot Spencer
Series: Unfettered [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1572586
Comments: 5
Kudos: 74





	But Fire is How We Fight

**Author's Note:**

> Can you tell I was super impressed by that Casablanca shootout scene in John Wick 3?

As far as cells go, this is probably the best one Eliot’s ever been in. So he’s freaked.

Throughout his rather colorful life, he’s been in his fair share of lockups; you can’t live as a soldier and hitter and once-mercenary without every once in a while seeing the wrong side of a locked door. But in his experience, most bad guys put their prisoners either deep underground or really high up, behind thick, windowless walls and concrete ceilings that muffle your screams while they torture you. 

This place, though, could be considered almost five-star compared to the others. It’s more a shack than a cell, thin wooden walls drafty and full of holes, letting him hear the bustle and buzz of the open-stall bazaar just a few blocks away. There’s no roof to speak of, just an ancient tree grown over the little building, leaves dripping water down into his hair. The chair his captors have cuffed him to is old and rusted, true, but there’s an actual cushion to it, even though most of the stuffing’s gone.

Bottom line: the men who took him haven’t bothered to make the place intimidating, isolating, or even particularly secure. Which could mean they’re completely incompetent and actually don’t know the first thing about how to properly detain someone, but given how they managed to get the drop on him in the first place, Eliot’s betting it’s more than that. More likely than not these people just don’t have a good reason to lock him away: they’re not planning to keep him around for torture or questioning.

When they come back for him, it’ll be to put a bullet in his brain.

He tugs at the cuffs again, but they’re tight against his wrists, no give or flex even if he were to purposely dislocate a finger. The chair, also, though old, is made of solid metal that won’t break no matter how hard he throws himself around. These guys are professionals. And for the first time in a long time, Eliot’s a little afraid.

He does spare a quick moment of relief that apparently they only targeted him and not the rest of the team; Nate, Sophie, Hardison, and Parker are safe, tucked away in their hotel room, probably going crazy trying to figure out why he went off comms two days ago. The little earbud had been the first thing the men had gone for when they’d ambushed him in the alley, like they knew ahead of time. The whole thing stinks of an inside job; he’s gonna have to inspect their client real closely after he gets out of here.

If he gets out of here. Because Eliot already knows no one’s coming for him. Without the earbud even Hardison can’t track him, not after those men dumped him in a truck and drove him who-knows-how-long out of the city. None of his contacts know he’s in Brazil, and even if they did, Rio de Janeiro is too big a place for them to find him in time. He’s on his own.

And things don’t look good.

As if on cue, bootsteps approach from down the street, squelching in the mud. The door creaks as it swings open, and the man who steps in doesn’t bother to close it again. Eliot doesn’t recognize him, not from the fight in the alley or the ride in the truck, which means he’s probably the mastermind behind the entire thing, preferring to sit back and let his goons do the dirty work.

He’s also got a pistol, a standard Beretta M9 that he loads and cocks with easy, practiced efficiency as he says, “Eliot Spencer.”

All the muscles in Eliot’s body tighten in response. Maybe this is his chance: the guy’s gonna want to spend some time monologuing, surely, telling Eliot all about how he tracked him down and what an exquisite pleasure it’ll be to kill him, and while he’s distracted maybe Eliot can get out of those cuffs after all, plant a fist in the guy’s nose and take his chances out in the bazaar, maybe find a sat phone he can call Hardison on and—

But the man doesn’t do any of that. Instead, he just comes to stand in front of Eliot and raises the gun so that the muzzle hovers a couple inches from his forehead. “Sorry about the delay,” he says, like they’re encountering each other across a customer service desk. Eliot almost laughs.  _ I’d like to speak to your manager… _ “Had to negotiate the contract. You’re worth more dead, as it turns out, so. You know. Close your eyes, or something.”

Eliot doesn’t. He glares up at the man, everything inside him burning with terror and despair and white-hot rage. This is how it ends, then. This is how he goes: not helping a client or protecting his team, but executed like a peasant in the back of a rundown house in a shitty little street market in Brazil. God, Parker and Hardison are going to take it hard. Sophie will cry for weeks, Nate will retreat into a bottle, and Quinn…fuck.

He can’t think about Quinn. His warm laugh or how half his Netflix queue is nature documentaries. The way he rough-houses with his dogs or the comforting feel of his hand on Eliot’s shoulder. The future they could have had, probably would have had if Eliot hadn’t decided to go do recon on his own for this job, hadn’t made himself stupid and vulnerable enough to get captured. They were headed somewhere, him and Quinn, someplace warm and wonderful beyond occasional drinks, meaningful looks, and too-long-lingering touches. 

The fact that he’ll never know what Quinn tastes like, or how he likes his morning coffee, or whether he lets the dogs sleep on the bed…Eliot swallows, staring down the muzzle of the gun. This, more than anything, will be his greatest regret.

The man shrugs. “Have it your way then,” he says, finger tightening on the trigger.

A few interesting things happen after that.

A shape appears in the open doorway. It’s large and furry, with pointed ears and bright golden eyes. A snarling growl rolls through the room, enough to make the hairs on Eliot’s neck stand on end.

The man frowns and starts to turn. “The hell—”

Noise from above, and something drops down from the tree. The man curses, drops the gun, and promptly gets yanked out of Eliot’s line of sight. As the unmistakable sounds of fist hitting flesh rise behind him, Eliot blinks as the giant wolf-like dog pads quietly into the room, sitting back on her haunches to watch him with a judgmental look as if to say,  _ Really? You needed our help for this? _

And Eliot’s never been so glad to see her in his life.

“Duchess,” he whispers, just as a body hits the floor behind him and his rescuer steps around the chair.

“Eliot Spencer.” Quinn shakes his head, though he’s smiling. “Are you losing your touch?”

He’s not wearing a suit, for once, instead dressed in a rumpled button-down and a pair of pants already splattered with mud. There are darkening bruises on his knuckles and a smudge of dirt across his cheek, his hair is a mess and it looks like he hasn’t slept in a couple days, but to Eliot he’s never looked more beautiful.

Quinn is here. It doesn’t matter how or why, but he is. And god, Eliot’s gonna grab onto that future with both hands and never let go.

He tries to move his wrists, then groans when that sends a spike of pain up his nerves. Quinn’s eyes soften. “Hang on.”

He disappears again behind the chair. Duchess comes forward, expression still vaguely disappointed, and Eliot expects her to huff or pee on his shoes or something, but instead she just presses her body against his legs and puts her head down across his knees. He swallows around a suddenly-constricted throat. “Thanks, girl.”

“Oy,” Quinn says, from somewhere behind him. It’s embarrassing, really, how Eliot finds that a comfort rather than a threat. “Did you forget I was the one doing all the dirty work?”

“That ain’t new,” Eliot shoots back, which earns him an amused chuckle, a jingle of keys, and a brush of warm fingers over his hands. The cuffs pop open. Eliot rubs his wrists, hissing, and Duchess lifts her head just enough to lick the roughened red skin. 

“Traitor; he feeds you  _ one salmon _ .” But there’s no heat in Quinn’s voice as the younger man steps back into Eliot’s line of sight and offers a hand. Eliot takes it without hesitation—which is also something he’ll need to consider more deeply later, how he doesn’t even seem to care that that hand once clenched into a fist flying at his face—and allows Quinn to pull him to his feet. He’s a little wobbly at first but Quinn’s hand on his hip is steady, and maybe they’d clocked him with that pipe a little harder than he thought because he sort of just sighs and leans into it when Quinn tilts his chin up. The younger man just smiles at that, standing close enough Eliot can feel the air between them move as he murmurs, “You’re okay.”

Eliot doesn’t know who Quinn’s trying to reassure, but he nods anyway. They didn’t damage him much in the scuffle; probably figured they didn’t need to, knowing where he was headed. Joke’s on them, though, because Eliot Spencer is alive, and pissed.

A low bark startles him from his thoughts and he blinks, peering past Quinn’s broad shoulder to the still-open door. There’s another shape there, smaller and darker than Duchess, distinctive pink tongue lolling out the side of her mouth, and he smiles and looks back at Quinn. “Didn’t know your dogs could track.”

“They can do a lot more than that.” 

“Nate call you in?”

Something shifts in Quinn’s gaze, solid as steel and hot as fire. “He didn’t have to.”

Eliot swallows. What can he say to that?

Thankfully, he’s saved from doing something embarrassing by a shout in the distance, joined shortly after by a group of others. Someone must’ve noticed their kind host taking longer than necessary with the prisoner. Quinn, for his part, just grunts and heads over to the unconscious man behind them, reaching down for the abandoned Beretta, but Eliot stops him. “No guns.”

The look Quinn sends him then would curdle milk. “Spencer.”

In response, Eliot jerks his chin in the direction of the bazaar. “Lotsa innocent folks’re gonna die if we start a shootout,” he says, “and I ain’t lookin’ to add to my ledger today.”

Quinn fights himself for a moment; Eliot sees it clearly in the way his eyes narrow and a muscle twitches in his jaw. It’s not the prospect of collateral damage that’s got him all twisted up, Eliot knows—he’d been pleasantly surprised to discover that when it comes to civilians, Quinn’s moral compass is almost as straight as his own—but the younger hitter works by putting his enemies down the first time, every time, so they can’t rise up and stab him in the back. To set all that aside has to go against all the survival instincts Quinn has, everything he believes in.

So Eliot knows how big of a sacrifice it is when Quinn finally straightens, leaves the Beretta where it lies, and nods. His heart tightens in his chest. “Thanks,” he whispers, and thinks Quinn understands what he means to say when the younger man grins, lopsided, and motions to the door.

“Shall we begin?”

The dogs disappear as soon as they step outside, but Quinn doesn’t seem to care so Eliot doesn’t pursue it. The bazaar is exactly how he’d pictured it from the noise: stalls crowded and crammed together, clothes and meat and cheap knock-off merchandise hanging every which way, sellers shouting and waving their arms as they haggle and argue and threaten. The sheer amount of people wandering around is enough to make Eliot’s skin crawl as he crouches next to Quinn behind a stall filled with colorful bags, poking his head out just long enough to identify their opponents, distinctive in dark dress, covered faces, and visible semi-automatics.

“Shit,” he grumbles. “Seven that I can see, all armed.”

“That’s all?” Quinn answers with a shit-eating grin, which Eliot can’t help but return.

To their credit, it’s a great start. Barreling through the bazaar, using the stalls and merchandise for cover, they do what they were trained to do and they do it fucking well. Eliot takes down two of the closest guys, flipping one over into a vegetable stall (the woman there shrieks but she’ll get over it) and sinking his fist into the other’s face. His knuckles burst with pain but it’s a small price to pay for the telltale crunch of breaking teeth and he quickly reaches down, grabbing their weapons and disarming them by muscle memory. A few stalls over, Quinn’s taking care of a couple others from the pained shouts and heavy thumps, and Eliot straightens and turns, ready to engage the stragglers—

_ Bang! _

He drops on instinct, which is just as well because the bullet smacks into the wall right where his head was. The bazaar crumbles into chaos, people screaming and running and jostling each other in their haste to escape. More gunshots ring out, followed by various things exploding and Eliot ducks, keeping himself low as he moves, seeking a better angle.

He finds Quinn crouched down a narrow side alley stuffed with colorful clothes flapping on their lines. The other hitter looks none the worse for wear, but his expression is dark as he shouts to be heard over the ruckus, “Looks like you got a shootout after all!”

“Shut up!”  _ Bang! Bang! _ He flinches but the gunmen don’t seem to know their exact location, are probably just trying to flush them out. Even so, Eliot can’t let them stay out there for long. Who knows how many innocent bystanders are already injured or dead?

“We need backup!” he shouts, which, in retrospect, may have been exactly what Quinn was waiting to hear.

A slow grin unfolds on Quinn’s face, hazel eyes glinting. “Well, since you asked so nicely,” he says, then stands up and shouts, in a voice that rings across the bazaar, “ _ Bretzka! _ ”

The word summons two demons from Hell.

A giant gray shape barrels past Eliot, so close he actually feels the air move. He gets only half a second to register golden eyes and a mouth full of long teeth before Duchess hurls herself at one of the men, taking him straight over one of the stalls with a high-pitched wail. His compatriots shout and raise their guns, but in the next instant Rhea bursts out from a side path and tackles another guy, his weapon firing uselessly even as she drags him bodily out of sight as he screams.

Movement to his left, and he turns just in time to catch Quinn’s bright grin as the other hitter vaults over a counter and delivers a flying kick to another man’s face. As the poor guy spins into the dirt Quinn calls, “ _ Vahjiet! _ ” and bends down, and Rhea takes a running leap off his back to take out another shooter.

And that’s just the beginning.

Eliot can’t tear his eyes away, watching Quinn and his dogs decimate the remaining men. Quinn moves with deadly grace, strikes brutal and sure and steel-solid with intent, while Duchess and Rhea launch back and forth across the bazaar like giant bullets, called to action by their master’s sharp-shouted orders. They move like a hurricane, one mind divided among three, and Eliot can’t help but swallow when he realizes they’re not killing any of the men. Breaking bones and ripping off skin and dislocating body parts, sure, judging from the screams and blubbery begging, but even though Duchess is throwing her weight around with almost cheerful abandon, and Rhea’s sharp teeth are dripping blood, they’re being almost stupidly careful. 

He doesn’t have to be a genius to know why.

It’s over in less than thirty seconds. Eliot beats one more guy into the ground, disassembling his pistol and tossing the pieces away just in time to hear Quinn bark, “ _ Szetchke! _ ”

It’s like someone flips a switch: the two bloodthirsty monsters instantly disappear, leaving just Rhea and Duchess, tongues out and tails wagging. Their fur is dusty and speckled with blood, and Eliot doesn’t even want to know what those dark bits between Duchess’s teeth are as they converge eagerly on Quinn for ear-scratches. “Yeah, you’re my girls,” Quinn murmurs, checking them both over quickly for injuries before turning to Eliot. “You good?”

Eliot nods. “Yeah.” And he is. With Quinn at his back and the two dogs guarding his flank, Eliot Spencer is fucking invincible.

Which, of course, is when the universe decides otherwise.

He’ll have nightmares about it for weeks: the sudden movement to his right, where he’d put down the last guy. Quinn’s eyes widening as he shouts. A gunshot and his vision going gray, not due to injury but for another awful, terrible reason.

The high-pitched cry that no human can make, an instant before something slams Eliot to the ground.

He’s vaguely aware of Quinn yelling something, followed by the sound of two quick, sharp gunshots. Rhea barks in the distance, confused, distressed, but Eliot can’t focus on her because he knows who’s lying on top of him right now, who took that bullet for him, whose warm blood he now feels soaking into his shirt.

“ _ Duchess! _ ” He gets only a glimpse of Quinn’s pale, terrified face before the younger man hauls the dog’s dead weight off Eliot, shaking hands flitting over thick gray fur now darkening with blood. “Oh god, no, no, no…”

The man who’d shot at him sprawls nearby in a rapidly-expanding pool of blood, two precision gunshot wounds to the chest and forehead. Eliot can’t even bring himself to care, though, because Rhea is running panicked circles around them, whimpering like a puppy, and Quinn is cursing as he picks Duchess up and God, there’s so much blood and she’s so limp, so lifeless _ — _

“Eliot!” Quinn’s shout startles him back into the moment, and he looks up just in time to see the other hitter nod toward the bazaar’s west exit, where a dirty white van is parked. “Get us outta here, move! Rhea,  _ hevra! _ ” 

The van’s back doors are open and Rhea vaults through them on the next breath, the vehicle shaking under her weight. Eliot books it for the driver’s seat, throwing himself in and starting the ignition with a roar. A second later, the van dips and he watches in the rearview mirror as Quinn hefts Duchess up into the back, shirt covered in blood, and looks at Eliot with haunted eyes. “ _ Go. _ ”

Eliot doesn’t have to be told twice.

As they floor it away from the bazaar and toward the outskirts of the city, Eliot watches in the rearview as Quinn bends over Duchess, whispering words he can’t hear. Duchess whimpers, front paw twitching, tries to lift her head to lick Quinn’s face but can’t seem to manage it. Rhea cries, high-pitched and shaky, and Eliot feels tears sting his own eyes as he slams the accelerator to the floor. If he can get them to the city, find a vet or a doctor or someone with just a few goddamned bandages—

Then, behind him, Quinn straightens up and takes a deep, trembling breath. “Stop the car.”

Cold bursts in Eliot’s chest. “We can still—”

“I said  _ stop the fucking car. _ ”

Quinn’s face is utterly blank, empty and featureless as a pane of glass. In his arms, Duchess has stopped moving. Eliot swallows and eases his foot off the gas.

Night’s come on, the blackness outside cut only by the van’s warm yellow headlights as they cruise slowly to a stop. Quinn doesn’t wait, just hefts Duchess up, kicks open the back doors, and strides off into the darkness. Rhea hesitates for a moment, watching Eliot, eyes big and black and so utterly lost, and Eliot for one desperate second thinks of throwing open the car door and running after Quinn, telling him they can still make it, that Duchess will be okay, they’ll go back to Chicago and feed her all the fish she wants and she’ll be  _ fine _ , she’ll be…

Rhea’s ears droop, and she turns and disappears into the darkness. Eliot grips the steering wheel tight enough for the worn rubber to bite into his palms, and counts the passing seconds. One. Two…

At ten, a single lone gunshot rings out in the night.

Rhea begins to howl.

Alone in the darkness, with blood on his hands and his heart iced over with grief, Eliot hunches over the steering wheel and lets himself cry.

#

Two weeks later, Parker plops down on the couch and bumps Eliot’s shoulder. “I’m sorry.” 

“What did you do,” he grunts, more out of habit than anything else, and Parker shrugs.

“Well, you’ve been all sad ever since we got back from Brazil,” she says. “And I know it’s not because of the client because he turned out to be squeaky clean after all. Which means you’re sad about something else to do with the job, and the only thing unique about it was you getting captured and beat up, and that’s because we didn’t keep a good eye on you, so. I’m sorry, Eliot.”

“What?” He shakes his head, because of course that’s where her brain would go. “No, Parker, that’s…I don’t care about that, I fucked that all up my own damned self. You have nothing to be sorry for.”

He can see it comforts her by the way her shoulders relax, but then she frowns and pokes him in the arm. “Then what is it?” she asks. “The job’s done, the client’s happy, people are in jail. So why are you still sad?”

“It’s…complicated.” 

And isn’t that the understatement of the year. Truth be told, Eliot has no idea how he’s managed to get through the last couple of weeks, and thanks all the powers that be that they haven’t gotten a new job in the interim; asking him to watch his teammates’ backs with the storm in his head and his insides all twisted up like this is just inviting trouble. 

Thankfully, the team must think he’s feeling this way because of the capture and the beating because they’ve mostly left him alone until now. Eliot’s grateful for it. He hasn’t told them about Quinn, or the shootout in the bazaar. He hasn’t told them about his stupidity that got a beautiful, wonderful, loyal, gentle soul killed trying to protect him.

He’s not just sad, he’s fucking  _ miserable _ . Every time he closes his eyes, he hears that gunshot in the dark, smells the lingering scent of Duchess’s blood. And that  _ look _ on Quinn’s face, right before he vanished into the night…

Eliot looks down at his hands in his lap, calloused and covered in old scars. He’s been so  _ stupid _ , thinking he could follow a code, could somehow keep his hands clean and blood-free. Has he forgotten that nothing in this world is free? He insisted to Quinn that they leave those gunmen alive, and as a reward he got Duchess killed instead. If he’d just let that go, if he’d killed that man like he should have in the bazaar, Duchess would still be alive. Rhea wouldn’t have lost her sister, and Quinn…

Quinn would still be a part of his life.

Back on that road out of Rio, Eliot waited two hours after the gunshot, but Quinn never returned. In the weeks since, Eliot’s sent him multiple texts, even called and left voicemails a couple of times even though any good hitter knows that’s a stupid thing to do. Quinn hasn’t responded to any of them. And Eliot’s really afraid that he lost more than just Duchess that night in Brazil.

Maybe this is what he’s meant for. Maybe this is why he doesn’t deserve this new life as a reformed criminal, a do-gooder who corrects the wrongs in the world. Eliot Spencer will always be a hitter, who takes those things that are most precious to others and breaks them without a thought. Duchess is just the latest in a long line of failures.

“Eliot!” Parker calls after him, distressed, but he barely hears it as he strides for the door. He can’t be here right now, not in this place of warm light and soft laughter and people who look at him like he’s worthy. He’s not; there’s a corpse rotting away in Brazil right now that proves it. He needs to get away from it, the pain in his heart and above all that the  _ wanting _ , the desperate desire to have Quinn back, solid and sure and not staring at Eliot like he’s a fucking monster.

His teammate, evidently, doesn’t take the hint because light footsteps tail him as he bursts out the front doors and heads for his truck. Eliot growls, quickening his steps. “Not now, Parker.”

But apparently she’s pissed in addition to being worried because Parker doesn’t take that for an answer. Before Eliot knows it a slim blonde shape has planted herself between him and the door, arms crossed, blue eyes blazing. “ _ Eliot. _ ”

He glares. “Move, Parker.”

Most people in the world would cower and piss themselves at his tone, but Parker isn’t most people. “No.”

“I swear to God—”

“You don’t get to suffer by yourself anymore.”

He blinks, stares as Parker widens her stance as if preparing for a fight. Her eyes shine, though, wet with what Eliot suddenly realizes are tears as she continues, shaky, “You and me, we’re the same. We work alone, have done all our lives. But we stopped that when we joined Leverage, Eliot. We  _ chose _ to stop, to go from being alone to being part of a team, and now you don’t get to push me away just because you don’t like me asking you questions.”

She pauses, and her lower lip trembles. “You don’t have to tell me now,” she says. “Sophie says you’ll be ready when the time comes, and that’s okay. But you don’t get to keep this to yourself forever. That’s how it ends up hurting inside. And I…” She swallows, hard. “I don’t want you to hurt. Not now, not ever.”

And, well, what else is Eliot supposed to do? Parker squawks in surprise when he hauls her in but relaxes almost immediately, pressing her forehead to his shoulder as they squeeze each other, shaking. Eliot’s throat hurts. This is what it means to be loved. This is what it means to have family.

When they finally pull apart, he magnanimously ignores how Parker’s cheeks are wet; he’s got the same problem, anyway, and she returns the favor, smiling and placing her hands on her hips. “So what now?”

Before Eliot can answer, a low whimper sounds out in the silence.

For a moment they just stand there, blinking at each other. Eliot glances down at his truck. He can’t be sure, but that almost sounded like…

Another whimper, tiny and weak. Parker’s eyes widen. “It’s coming from under your car!” she cries, and drops to her knees.

Eliot joins her a moment later, and forgets to breathe.

There’s a dog under his truck. He can’t tell for sure but he’s pretty sure it’s a puppy, all short legs and floppy ears as it curls into itself against Eliot’s front tire, trembling all over from the morning cold. It’s black enough to blend into the asphalt, and for a moment Eliot just stares, uncomprehending. Surely the universe wouldn’t work this way?

But apparently it does because in the next instant the puppy lifts its head, all big eyes and wet, quivering nose, and lets out a pitiful squeal. Parker coos. “It’s okay, doggy, we’re here!” she says, and before Eliot can say anything she’s pressing herself flat to the ground, freshly-laundered white shirt be damned, and reaching out underneath the truck.

Five minutes later, he stares dumbfounded down at the dog in his arms, shivering within the folds of his jacket. Parker hovers, fussing and cooing as she runs her fingers over short dark fur. “Oh, you’re so cute! Why would anyone throw you away? I’m gonna call you Cricket, and you can live at the bar with us and Nate will feed you and Hardison will take you for walks and Sophie will dress you up and—”

“Parker.” Eliot shakes his head. “We can’t keep the dog.”

“Why not?” She pouts. “We’ve got the space, and Nate is always looking sad and lonely so a puppy will make him feel better!”

“That’s not…” He takes a deep breath. “I doubt a puppy’s gonna fix how Nate’s feeling, Parker. And who’s gonna take care of it while we’re away on jobs? And what if it pees everywhere and tears everything up, or eats Hardison’s phone or chews up Sophie’s favorite shoes or something?”

“Oh.” Parker nods. “Yeah, that wouldn’t be good.” Then her face brightens. “You can keep it!”

“What?”

“You have a big place with lots of room, and you can always get someone to dogsit while you’re away. Plus you don’t have a lot of stuff you care about all that much, so the puppy can eat all of it and you wouldn’t care. Unless it’s your knives. But I don’t think dogs eat knives.”

If his hands weren’t currently occupied holding an armful of miserable puppy, Eliot would pinch the bridge of his nose. “Parker, I can’t. I don’t know the first thing about dogs.” It’s true, too. Growing up, his home life wasn’t exactly conducive to having pets. Even less so as a soldier, and then a hitter.

Abruptly, something lights up at the back of his mind. A hitter, and dogs.

Parker shrugs. “So then find someone who does,” she says, and okay, Universe, this is getting a little ridiculous, isn’t it?

Eliot shakes his head, looks back down at the puppy. As far as signs go, this one’s obvious as fuck, but who is he to ignore it? Maybe this means something. Maybe this is his second chance.

The puppy barks and stretches up to lick his chin, and for the first time in the last two weeks, Eliot manages a smile. “You know what, Parker? I’m gonna skip town for a bit.”

“Okay!” Parker grins at him before waving at the bundle in his arms. “Bye, Cricket! Don’t pee on Eliot, okay?”

When Eliot laughs, it doesn’t hurt at all.

#

Several hours later, he stands outside a closed door in Chicago and takes a deep breath.

Quinn might not even be here. He could be on the other side of the world right now, taking out his grief with fists and bullets and merciless fury. And there’s no guaranteeing that, even if he was here, he wouldn’t respond to Eliot in the same way. This is just asking for trouble, or at least a fist to the face.

Yet somehow Eliot’s still here, with his hands in his pockets and his duffle bag over his shoulder, waiting for a response to his knock.

Whatever Quinn wants to give him, Eliot will take it. Parker was right; he doesn’t get to keep this to himself anymore. And Quinn’s not the only one who looked at Duchess and loved her completely.

Movement from inside: a soft bark, and heavy footsteps. They pause at the door, and quiet settles for a few long moments.

Eliot coughs into his fist and tries a small, shaky smile.

The door beeps, unlocks, and swings open. Quinn watches him, careful. “Spencer.”

He looks about as bad as Eliot feels: his clothes are wrinkled, there are shadows under his eyes, and he looks thinner than he did in Brazil, like maybe he hasn’t been eating much. Even so, his training evidently hasn’t subsided because he easily blocks the entrance with his body, gaze flitting behind Eliot to scan briefly for threats before refocusing back on him. “Wasn’t expecting a visit.”

“Wasn’t expecting to make the trip,” Eliot answers, then resists the urge to kick himself. Now is not the time for snark. “Sorry.”

Quinn hums, soft, and seems to take a moment before making a decision and stepping aside. “Well, since you came all this way.”

The apartment is much the same from the last time Eliot was here: almost ridiculously spartan, blackout curtains drawn, just a few overhead lights providing pale illumination. There’s an old throw sprawled over the couch with Rhea on top of it, the large black dog regarding Eliot with a curious cock of her head as David Attenborough narrates something about gazelles on the television.

“Want a drink?” Quinn opens the fridge without waiting for an answer and slides a beer across the kitchen island. Eliot catches it but doesn’t move to open it, instead taking a deep breath.

“I’m really sorry, Quinn.”

He doesn’t mean for his voice to shake, and it’s probably that more than anything that gets Quinn to blink at him like he has no idea what Eliot’s talking about. “For what?”

“For Duchess.”

“Oh.” An infinite sadness enters Quinn’s eyes as his entire body seems to fold in on itself. Eliot barely resists the urge to reach out. Rhea, fortunately, doesn’t have the same scruples, rushing off the couch and pressing up against her master’s side with a low whine of concern.

Quinn smiles a little, sad, as he strokes Rhea’s head. “Did you know she would’ve turned six this month? I was gonna get her and Rhea a deer to celebrate.”

Eliot swallows hard. “No.”

“I only fed that to her once and she’s never forgotten it,” Quinn says, the misery in his voice enough to squeeze Eliot’s heart in his chest like ice-cold fingers. “Every damn year, like clockwork, she’d plant herself at the door and refuse to budge until I brought the bag in. Fucking spoiled, even before you came along.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Quinn shakes his head. “Fuck, I miss her.”

Eliot nods, but doesn’t trust himself to say anything. What can he say, anyway? He only saw Duchess a few times over the past several months, while he and Quinn tried to figure out what this thing was between them. And now he doesn’t even know if that thing exists anymore. Surely Quinn looks at Eliot now and sees only the selfish asshole who killed his dog. Eliot’s lucky he hasn’t been shot in the head yet.

“Look,” he says, and sighs. “I just came by to drop somethin’ off, but after that, I...I won’t come around again. You have my word.”

If he was expecting a reaction from Quinn, the other man lifting his head and blinking at him like he just spoke a foreign language definitely isn’t it. “What? Why?”

“Because it was my fault Duchess died.” And there, he’s said it. If only it would make the pain go away. “If I hadn’t made y’all handicap yourselves, that guy wouldn’t’ve shot her. So I’m sorry.”

Quinn stares at him, and Eliot braces for it: the anger, the fists. And the anger does come, a sharp flash in Quinn’s hazel eyes as he snaps, “Are you a fucking idiot?”

Which...basically throws the whole thing off-script. Eliot gapes as Quinn glares at him. “All this time, you’ve been blaming yourself for this? Get over yourself, Spencer.” He nods down at Rhea, still pressed against his leg. “My dogs know exactly how to operate in combat situations. I didn’t train them to be anything less than perfect at what they do, so don’t go insulting my work, or their abilities.”

He takes a deep breath. “You wanna blame someone for this, blame the fucker who killed her. Duchess died protecting someone I care about. Don’t you dirty her memory by twisting it all up.”

And Eliot, well. He’s never been so confused. Quinn doesn’t blame him for what happened to Duchess? 

“But you haven’t been returning my texts.” He regrets it as soon as it’s out of his mouth. What is he, some jilted high-schooler? 

Quinn seems to agree from the way he sighs and looks at Eliot like he’s never seen anyone stupider. “I haven’t been returning  _ anybody’s _ texts,” he answers, enunciating as if Eliot’s a particularly slow child, “because my dog just died and I’ve been  _ really fucking sad _ .”

Oh.

Quinn huffs. “Not everything revolves around you, Spencer.”

And yeah, okay. So Eliot’s an idiot. Not just for, apparently, painting Quinn as a much worse person than he actually is. He’s not lying, Eliot can tell from the genuine disappointment in his expression. Quinn really hasn’t even considered blaming Eliot for Duchess’s death, and one day months down the road Eliot’s gonna parse that a little more, what that means when it comes to carving a space for the other man in his life.

But right now, he’s too focused on the other thing Quinn said.  _ Duchess died protecting someone I care about. _

Slowly, tentatively, something unfurls inside his chest. Something warm, and soft, and whispering of promise. Something like hope.

Maybe he didn’t destroy the thing between them after all. Maybe it’s stronger, and deeper, and far more extraordinary than he ever thought.

And that’s when his duffle bag whimpers.

Rhea’s ears perk up. It’s difficult to describe the expression that comes over Quinn’s face: some mixture of surprise, confusion, and just a tint of residual anger. “Spencer,” he says, speaking slowly. “What, exactly, were you intending to drop off?”

“Well.” Boy, if he didn’t feel stupid before, he definitely does now. He’d planned to just hand the puppy over, let Quinn yell and maybe hit him a few times, and then get the hell out of there before his heart splintered to pieces. But now? “It’s, uh. It’s not what it looks like.”

Quinn lifts an eyebrow. “Really? Because it  _ looks like _ you bought me a puppy out of pity, like that’ll somehow make up for Duchess.”

“That’s  _ not _ it.” The vehemence in his voice must come through because Quinn lifts his chin but doesn’t interrupt as Eliot continues, “Look, okay, yeah, I felt really bad about Duchess. Still do, probably always will no matter what you say about it. She saved my ass in Rio, Quinn, she and you and Rhea, and I can’t...I’ll always think about her, all right? She’s just...always gonna be there, no matter what.”

Quinn doesn’t say anything, so Eliot sighs, reaching down to unzip his bag and lift the little puppy out. It yelps and squirms unhappily in his hand, and he doesn’t miss the way Rhea’s whole body tenses, or the sharp breath Quinn takes.

“But this little guy’s not to replace Duchess.  _ Nothing _ can replace Duchess. I just...I found it under my truck this morning and I don’t know shit about dogs, and I didn’t want to leave it with Parker ‘cause she’d probably set it on fire by accident, and I dunno. I thought maybe...” He takes a deep breath and goes for it. “I thought maybe I could leave it here. You know, not yours and not mine, but ours.”

Silence. Quinn watches him, eyebrows raised. Eliot tries not to squirm, but he also doesn’t break eye contact. After everything Quinn’s sacrificed for him the last couple of weeks, Eliot needs him to know he’s serious about this. No more beating around the bush, no more shy dates disguised as friendly drinks filled with uncertain looks and too-hesitant touches. He wants a future with this man, who fights like a cannon and loves his dogs and can never remember how many S’s are in “assassinate”. He wants  _ Quinn _ , plain and simple, and he wants this, right here, to be the beginning of something amazing for the both of them.

Then, eventually, something in Quinn’s face softens. His hazel eyes light and the corner of his mouth quirks up as he says, “Her.”

“What?”

The other man nods at the puppy. “Her, not it. She’s female.”

“Oh.” Eliot does still manage to roll his eyes, even as everything inside him hums with warm relief and an even deeper emotion he’s not quite ready to contemplate. He sets the puppy down on the island and strides toward Quinn. “I swear to God, if you say somethin’ like she’s got a very distinctive snout—”

“She does, though,” Quinn says, grinning as he pulls Eliot in. And then they’re kissing, and Eliot’s not thinking about much else.

It’s simultaneously exactly how he imagined it and nothing even close. Quinn’s large hands are solid and secure at his hips and he smells vaguely of coffee and aftershave, humming low in his throat as they taste each other for the first time. Eliot’s head spins as he presses close, everything inside him alight with awe and devotion and an irrevocable feeling of  _ right _ . This is where he’s been headed all his life. This, right here, is what makes all the pain and terror and sweat and blood worth it. 

Eliot Spencer has reached the end of his road, and discovered there’s a home there waiting for him after all.

He’s a little dizzy when they finally pull apart, grateful for Quinn’s arm around his waist holding him up as the younger man chuckles and presses their foreheads together. “Wow. Been waiting forever for that.”

“We could do it some more,” Eliot says, hooking a finger in Quinn’s beltloop, and has the satisfaction of watching the other man’s eyes darken. Quinn licks his lips and Eliot can’t help but stare, something hot and aching curling deep in his gut, and he leans forward, reaching, and Quinn moves to meet him—

And the puppy on the counter begins to cry.

For one insane moment, Eliot kind of wants to shoot it. But then Rhea barks, and the puppy cries harder, and Quinn sighs and steps back. He’s smiling, though, a goofy grin that lights his eyes like he can’t help it, and there’s no mistaking the way his arm brushes Eliot’s elbow even as he bends down and picks the puppy up, stroking gently down her soft belly.

“Okay, princess, shh,” he murmurs, as the puppy squirms and nips at his fingers. “Man, you’re a mess. What did Eliot do, dip you in shit? Let’s get you a bath.”

He bumps Eliot’s shoulder as he heads out of the kitchen, warm and gentle, and Eliot grins. “Parker named her Cricket!” he calls.

“Of course she did!” Quinn shouts back, disappearing into the bedroom. As the water turns on a few seconds later, Eliot stands at the kitchen counter, shaking his head. It feels like he’ll never stop smiling. It feels, for the first time, like he’s earned this little bit of happiness.

A soft bark, and he turns. Rhea stands just outside the bedroom, watching him, ears up, tongue out. Before Eliot can say anything, the dog ambles up to him, closes her front teeth over the cuff of his sleeve, and gives two gentle, meaningful tugs.

Eliot didn’t think he could grin wider, but apparently he can.

“Well, since you asked so nicely,” he says, and pats Rhea on the head as she woofs and leads him into the bedroom.

Quinn, as it turns out, tastes like soy milk and cigarettes. He takes his morning coffee drowned in non-dairy creamer, like a monster. And he totally lets the dogs sleep on the bed.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Regarding translations:** All my works, including this one, can be translated without first asking my express permission. I ask only that you credit me as the original author and provide a link back to the original work. For anything other than translations, please ask first. Thanks.


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